By: Blonde Two
You have to love a bit of Latin, the perfect chance to show off. Sadly most of mine is related to plant names and hence pretty tricky to drop into everyday conversation. My sister was testing me on plant names a couple of weekends ago and I managed to commit the two bluebell ones to memory. Hyacinthoides hispanica is easy to remember as it is the larger rampaging Iberian branch of the bluebell family which came to our shores to rape and pillage the innocent Hyacinthoides (high-a-sinth-oy-dees) non-scripta and confuse its gene pool. Non-scripta is less easy to remember because it doesn’t appear to make any sense (a bit like Blondes).
Anyway, as you can see, the Two Blondes went on their annual Dartmoor bluebell discovery mission to Holwell Lawn on Monday and were not at all disappointed. The Bells of Blue (like the Belles of Blonde) are looking fine and dandy and seem to get better every year. They also smell heavenly. It is interesting to see them all ranged out across the open ground as we usually associate them with woodland. I found myself wondering whether the presence of bluebells at Holwell lawn goes back to a time when the lawn was a forest (much of Dartmoor was) but my searches have found more evidence of dancing pixies than woodland.
Here is a little bit more Latin for you, “verba volent, scripta manent”. I think it refers to blog writing!
A perfect little essay. Theoretically it has a beginning, a middle and an end but these are artfully disguised and thus the interest is enhanced. You know you’ve got it right when you read it through (ideally for the dozenth time) and all you need is to take out a comma. However as you read there’s a snare-drum beat in your head which gets more insistent the nearer you get to the end: Di-dah, di-dah, di-dum. Di-dah, di-dah, di-DUM!
And lo! It is finished and you feel a better person. Even if it’s only for six seconds.
You just liked the Latin!
Di-dah di-dah di-dum
Fullstop in Morse, if sent on a straight key. Of course, if it was sent on a keyer, it would be an impersonal di-dah di-dah di-dah.
A good photo. It has encompassed everything, and I reckon your cropping is spot on. It is just a matter of taste in that it seems a bit dark TO ME. I have just lightened it up a bit in Photoshop:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wotc1mmd1slxske/BlubellesBlonde.jpg
You are right of course but I was using the wrong computer at the time … well the right computer but no Photoshop. Much better thank you 🙂
I find it more difficult getting down on my rickety old knees (I can only kneel on one of them) these days to take that kind of pic.
Hee! I can get down there – but oh! The getting up!
Never mind the hackneyed bluebells [lots unfortunately pictured in my recent posts], whether dark or bright, just love the unfurling bracken top left!
Afraid the nasty foreign ones that have cross-pollinated with non-scripta have a really hard name – hyacinthoides x massartiana . Who dreams these things up? Massive Martian Bluebells indeed!